


The Children of Devil Mountain

by Astereae



Series: Epics [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gangs, Like, Multi, Super powers?, Terminal Illnesses, Violent, and other general Amorality, and punching, but do, but he doesnt die, but just kinda, byyyyyye, i never post ows so idk im in for an experience, idk just really different, lots of blood, not like blrb but like p, so dont worry, sorta - Freeform, super violent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 07:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astereae/pseuds/Astereae
Summary: When Red, 8yrs, leads four children into a scary strait of the local appalachian mountains, they meet a diety who is said to bestow generous gifts. And he does. Four kids come away with unknown powers and potential, for the cost of one boy's strength, vitality, life. They don't really know what happened and they end up on opposite sides of the mountain.But when seven years pass and the four children start losing their talents one by one, they have to find out what exactly it means- Boon and Burden- and how to value human life.





	The Children of Devil Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> Original work, for some shithole idea of reasoning.
> 
> Please tell me if im doing smthn wrong with red
> 
> This is better than gossamer
> 
> Pls read this 
> 
> I love you all

**Prologue**

Miracles were not meant for children. Devil’s mountain was a place for the young, but not for children.

  
Melody Alson, aged seven, was not supposed to be in the mountains. Adaline Correl, aged eight, was not supposed to be with her. Ver and Jack Masoner, aged seven, were not supposed to be out of bed. I personally, who didn’t have such restrictions, or at the very least, refused to acknowledge them, was leading them.

  
“Are you sure this is a good idea? Red?” Ver rubbed her hands on up and down her arms.

  
“They’re hiding something from us, I’m sure of it.” I said.

  
“Obviously. But we’ll find out if we need to. That’s what my mom said.”

  
“Well, I need to,” I said, looking at the dark path ahead.

  
“Then why’d you bring us along?” Jack said, more of an accusation than a question.

  
“’Cause you’re all losers,” I said, “and if one of you gets hurt, I probably won’t feel too bad about it.”

  
“If you’re hanging out with us, doesn’t that make you a loser, too?”

  
“For the time being, yeah.” Melody tripped on a rock.

  
“Mel, you alright?” Adaline asked.

  
“I’m fine,” Melody said, wiping her nose.

  
Everyone knew about the Miracles at Devil’s mountain, or in Devil’s Valley, but no one talked about it.

  
_Miracles are dangerous,_ Red, my mother’s voice reminded me. My mother was dead, so her advice was too.

  
“Think about it, Red,” Jack said, “do you know anyone who got a miracle, even though we live so close to Devil’s Mountain?”

  
I hesitated. “Yeah. Lay Haplan.”

“You don’t know Lay Haplan, you know of Lay Haplan.”

“So? It’s a real person who got a miracle, from Salem Hills.”

“You’re so full of shit, Red.”

“You can go back down the mountain if you like, but I have the flashlight.”

I shoved my cold, red hands into my pockets and held the unreliable LED flashlight with my mouth. We were supposed to go around the mountain that Salem Hills footed, into Devil’s Valley, but I didn’t have a map of the Penta mountains, or the paths that cross-crossed them. As we got higher, the ground got harder and the air got colder, and the trees turned from muddy oaks to sharp pines. Melody pulled her new sky-blue knitted hat further over her ears.

“Are we almost there, Red?” Adaline asked. We had started going downhill.

“Yeah,” I said, “we should be at the valley in about an hour.”

“An Hour?” Ver exclaimed.

“Probably faster,” I assuaged, “seeing as we’re going downhill.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Jack asked. Stubbornly, I pointed straight down the path. “Which way is Devil’s mountain?” I made a show of fiddling with the compass I’d stolen from my father’s desk. 

“He doesn’t even know how to use that.” I heard Adaline say to Melody.  
“I do too!” I snapped, turning to them.

“No, you don’t. Everyone knows that compasses don’t work around here.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“I... I don’t know.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. So would you guys just trust me?”

Jack shot me a look. I shot him one back.

We began to walk back uphill- I scowled. I didn’t think we’d gone backwards, but without a working compass, I couldn’t really tell.

At least the compass was pinned now instead of spinning around like a ballerina.

I stayed on the path.

“Red, are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Yes.” I said. I must’ve said it heavily enough that Jack didn’t contest me.

We continued climbing the mountain. Whichever it was, we would end up at Devil eventually.

“Red, I’m hungry,” Melody complained. I tossed her my water bottle from my hip, despite there not being much left in it. “I don’t have any food.”

“Can we take a break?” Ver asked timidly.

“No. No needs for breaks when we’re going to get a miracle.” Not everyone would get a miracle when they went up to Devil’s Mountain, actually, seldom many did. And out of those who did, only three had come down, in Salem’s hills records.  
I kept on trudging up the hill until Jack grabbed a fistfull of my hair, pulled me around so I was facing him, and punched me in the mouth.  
One of my teeth- my incisor, which had been prodigiously loose- fell out, along with another three that came out with a significant deal more pain. I spit out bone and blood and threw a hook at him. He took it, unsure of how to block it, and his pale, rich-boy skin blossomed almost immediately with dark reds and purples.

“Hey!” He said, touching it gently. I wiped the blood off my chin, ready to beat the kid to the ground, but the ground shook beneath our feet. Melody shrieked and I swore. My mouth felt dry, although it had been flooded with blood a moment before.

What I saw was incomprehensible, and everyone was quiet. He was huge, he was a god, I could see an eye, a finger, a bit of flesh that was every color. I started to cry. Weep, really, was the only word. Men were not meant to see a god, and children who had punched each other a half second before were certainly unworthy.

When I heard his voice, I had to close my eyes. Gods gave miracles, but devils might as well.

“Who will bear the burden of the gift I have to give from your blood?”

“I will!” I said, before any of the others I’d brought with me could. 

“Will you bear their burdens as well?”

“Yes!” I screamed, and the world I saw behind my eyes was white, not black. It was warm, and my down vest felt like it was choking me. The miracle was painful. I’d taken the miracle for five, naturally it would be.

“Very well,” the god said my name, “take the burden of these children.” And that was when I knew I’d made a mistake.

The world was so cold when I hit the ground, I couldn’t stand it, and I fainted.

The day I was lucky enough to meet a god was the day when all of my luck ran out.

**Chapter One**

**Seven Years Later**

I woke up to a dark world yet again. I was blind in one eye and deaf in the other ear, and when I was sleeping, the ear that could hear being open to the world was the most important thing. When I sat up and saw the morning light coming in through my window, I groaned. Today would’ve been my first day of high school, as a tenth grader, but it seemed like my stepmother had decided I would be better off at home. I couldn’t contest it, and I hated that I couldn’t.

I don’t know if there ever was a moment when I truly realized my life had been taken from me. I was so young when I was made a cripple. There wasn’t a life set before me that had been snatched away, but simply the possibility of a life like every other child.

At least you came back a cripple, my father said, because it’s better than dead. Sometimes I wondered if it was.

I checked the time on the clock by my bed. We were poor, and my invalid state meant I didn’t warrant a phone. I groaned a second time. Despite going to sleep prodigiously early for myself, I had still managed to sleep well past noon.

“AJ!” My stepmother called, probably hearing my misery. “Come down!”

I didn’t want to leave the attic. If I wasn’t going for school, I saw no point in it.

“Charity is over!” My heart twisted and I didn’t dare groan another time for the fear of the berating I would get. Reluctantly, I threw off my sheets and pulled on something resembling proper clothes. My hair was a mess and I didn’t want to fix it.

“AJ!” My step mom shrieked.

“Coming!” I yelled back, grabbing my glasses, wincing as my grubby hands touched the lenses. My hearing aid I’d leave on the desk. Charity always spoke louder than I needed.

I moved slowly down the stairs, every part of me aching despite the fact that I’d done nothing to warrant it. I’d never done something to warrant it. I was just dying. As I walked, I cleaned my glasses on the hem of my shirt, which was probably no better than my hands.

“Hey!” Charity said, her blond hair the only trait I could recognize without my glasses on. Her voice too.

“Hi, Charity.” I said, taking the last two painful steps down the stairs. When I put my glasses on, she came into view, like a camera finding its focus. She had wavy bright blonde hair that reached her mid back, eyes the color of toffee, and a too-wide smile full of braces.

“How are you today?” She spoke with a sickly sweet tone, like she was talking to the eight year old that had suddenly started dying rather than the fifteen year old who was more that halfway there.

“I’m as good as a walking corpse could be.” I said. “You?”

“I’m doing great!” She said. I wondered if she was a cheerleader this year. She’d always wanted to be one. She had the attitude for it.

“Glad someone is.” I said.

“AJ!” My stepmother said.

“Want to go outside?” I asked. “Can’t remember the last time I felt the sun on my skin.”

“Sure, Red.” She said, another brace-full smile.

I hated Charity. Both the girl and the concept. When you were slowly dying, your own body deciding to snuff your life out, you had to choose something other than yourself to hate. I had chosen Charity. She’d moved to Salem hills, her father and mother Miracle chasers, two years after the accident. She’d taken me as her project. What a wonderful happenstance that someone named Charity happened to be so charitable. My father said when she brought over brownies for me to eat in my attic for the third time. I’d simply nodded and reluctantly taken one of the dense pastries. I hated pity, and charity was a product of pity, so I hated it, too.

“What have the doctors been saying?” She asked as we settled into our usual spots, me in a comfortable rocking chair and her on the steps by my feet.

“I’ve got another year or so.” I said. “My sight will probably go out in the next five months, hearing in six. I won’t be able walk in four.” Degenerative bone disease. I felt like it was leeching into my muscles, too, not just my wafer-thin bones, but every inch of me, succumbing to the pain and the rot.

“Oh.” Charity said. “And there’s no way to-”

“We wouldn’t have the money if there was.” I said.

“Well,” she said, hope and eagerness flooding her form. “I set up a gofundme, see?” She showed me her smartphone, where the text was too small for me to read. I didn’t care about what it said, other than the bolded title, which read “help my disabled Native friend!” Native was bold and italicized. 

“Take it down.” I said. “I’m fine with going.”

“But I’m not fine with you going!” Charity said, “it’s like God himself told you to die, so you’re just waiting around doing nothing until you do!”

My heart pounded in my chest, panic rising in my throat. I tried to swallow the blood that was rushing to my face. I managed to say in a somewhat collected voice- “if god told you to die, would you?” Before vomit rose in my throat and I had to hurl inthe dead grass by our porch.

“Red!” Charity cried.

“I’m fine!” I growled, spitting out acid and water, all that had come up. “Don’t touch me!” My fingers felt numb, and then my arms, and I fell forward into grass satchurated with my own vomit.

“Red! Oh no, oh no. Monica! Red, Red, stay with me, would you?”

* * *

 

My father hated that kids called me Red. Salem Hills was a mining town before it began to trade in miracles, and it was built on the backs of our Nanticoke ancestors. There was a reservation that was on the east border of the town, but it wasn’t a Rez specifically for us, because we didn’t warrant it, and because government didn’t really like looking around the Penta Mountains. I grew up off the Rez, just like my father, cause my grandfather had moved to the foothills, forbidden territory, to sell carven trinkets to Miracle Chasers. It was shameful.  
Despite this history of shame and blasphemy, my father and my mother both were- religious wasn’t the right word- but... spiritual. I wasn’t.

There was a school on the reservation, and if you were Native, no matter if you were Cherokee or Nanticoke or something else, you went there. Didn’t matter if you lived in Salem, either, because they’d take kids from just about anywhere. It wasn’t legally segregation, just our watered down form of it. My dad didn't want me to go there, so I didn’t. I went to the public school in salem, full of miners and Miracle Chaser’s kids. They called me Red, and I’m not sure if that’s what I wanted to be called or if it’s what they called me and I turned it into power. Probably the second one, which I didn't mind because it meant that I had taken what made them mock me and turned it into an asset, which meant I was proud of Seven year old me.

When my friends first came over and called me that, my father kicked them out and slapped me, the first time my father had laid a hand on me, but not the last.  
_Be better._ He’d said. _Be better than what they call you and what they make you._  
Humiliated and hurt, I’d just nodded.  
_Good boy._

* * *

 

When I woke, it was the smell that I noticed first. Immediately I wanted to retreat back into sleeping. Antiseptic and latex. Hospital. I didn't want to be here. Not yet. The last time I’d been admitted, they told me that the next time I'd probably be in for the rest of my life. I wasn’t ready to go, not quite yet.

My hair smelled like the Hospital shampoo. I wondered how long I'd been in. I hurt everywhere, my arms felt like putty. I could hear the beeping of a monitor in the room. Was I really bad enough that they’d hooked me up to all of the machines?

It took me a while to shift my head so that I could see. The lights were off which meant it was probably night. Or maybe that

I’d finally gone blind in the other eye. I groped the side of the bed for the button to call the nurse. Maybe if someone else was in this situation, they would’ve panicked, but I’d been in here for more than half my life, so I knew what I had to do.

The nurse came in, Native, like me, and smiled wide.

“Are you okay, dear?”

“Can I have more pain meds?” I asked, it was a risky question, because I wasn’t white and she wasn’t white and the pain meds were opioids.

“Fraid not,” she said. “You have the legal amount for someone of your weight.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” I said.

“Do you want us to call your guardian?”

“No.” I said. “When can I leave?”

She winced, and I understood, deeply.

“No!” I said, angrily. My chest burned. Heart problems. I had those too. “No! You have to let me back out!”

“I’m sorry?” My eyesight was going out, the edges of the room were gone. My hearing, too. I could barely hear my own voice.

“No, no, I have another year, no!” I could barely see.

I couldn’t hear anymore.

I was deaf.

I started to cry.


End file.
